Three weeks ago, I led a group of women business owners on a professional development retreat.
After our three hour drive, we arrived at the resort about 5:00. Everyone wanted to stretch their legs and freshen up, so we agreed to meet in the lounge at 5:30 for a glass of wine before dinner.
The attractive lounge was downstairs and had a painted concrete floor, high ceilings and big glass windows that looked out over the pool (sounds lovely, doesn’t it?). Though it wasn’t crowded, the first thing we noticed as we gathered at our table was the noise level. All the hard surfaces made for lots of women saying, “What? I can’t hear you.” It was kind of hard to start the female bonding mood when we couldn’t near each other.
It took 40 minutes to get our drinks, which, by the way, were not exactly complicated Caribbean concoctions. Just beer and wine. Twice we asked our waitress to check on our order. She gave us a helpless look. Frustrated, I went directly to the bartender to ask for our drinks. He shrugged and told me he was very busy. Thanks.
Our plan for a relaxing weekend of learning and self care was off to a dubious start.
Things went downhill from there. Our dinner was marginal. One woman asked for cocktail sauce for her fried shrimp and the waiter brought her one of those little paper cups of catsup! The breakfast buffet was abundant but the eggs and sausage were cold. Our lunch the following day took 45 minutes to arrive. Even the afternoon chocolate cookies were bad. I didn’t know it was possible to make bad chocolate cookies!
The only thing that saved the weekend from being a complete disaster was the service staff, who were exceptionally kind and made every effort to compensate for the kitchen problems.
My clients were good sports, and didn’t let it ruin their weekend. Though there were plenty of little disparaging remarks about the venue, they enjoyed our workshop and one another’s company. But I doubt any of them will be planning their family vacations there!
I was anxious beyond words. As the leader, it’s my job to make sure my clients have a good experience. Worse, I had a second group going to this same location two weeks later. I’d made the arrangements months in advance and couldn’t bail out of the contract without a huge penalty.
What a dilemma. I wanted to minimize the second group’s expectations, yet I didn’t want to tell them about the problems, because I thought that would plant negative expectations andndash; and you get what you expect. So I simply reminded them it would be a “casual weekend.” How’s that for diplomacy.
But here’s what’s interesting. The second group had a much better experience.
Why? Had the resort replaced the bartender with someone who could multi-task faster? Had they fired the chef? Well, “chef” is a stretch; let’s just say “cook.”
No, the quality of the food was no better. The breakfast buffet was no warmer. Our lunch did arrive more promptly. The service was equally attentive.
You know what made the difference? Knowing that the lounge downstairs, with the high ceilings and concrete floor, was noisy and crowded, I chose a different location for the group to meet for their pre-dinner happy hour. It was a quiet room with a great view, and our service was perfect.
The entire trip started off on a much better note. The group had a much better experience. For my first group, that awful first impression in the lounge, taking 40 minutes to get our drinks and a waitress that didn’t take the service seriously, colored our impressions of everything that followed.
Making a good first impression matters. We might think that the importance of making a good first impression is shallow. After all, there’s much more to who we are and who our companies are than a first impression.
That’s true. Yet making a good first impression is where the trust begins. When a customer makes a decision to use your service or your product, they do so with a degree of trust.
You want your brand to be trusted. The true meaning of the word “brand” is “trust with the marketplace.” The more trust customers feel, the more they buy and they more they refer others.
On our first retreat, the negative first impression my group had damaged their trust and they were skeptical of everything that followed. The second group had a good first impression and everything that followed simply felt better. They weren’t expecting the worst. They had trust.
andcopy; 2011 Darcie Harris